As far as features go, Cliq is doing all right. The phone is complete with a decent camera (5 megapixel), video capability, sweet media tools, a spacious allowance for microSD memory, voice-activated search features, and easy access to Google Maps (street view), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and all the rest. It comes with a (teeny) Qwerty keyboard, a thankfully accurate touchscreen, and an eye-catching titanium body.

But the way that those features are bundled is what makes the Motorola Cliq standout. It uses Motoblur, which is Motorola’s catchy name for a new cloud-based social-everything service. Motoblur tries to lasso everything social in someone’s life and put it into one snazzy portable format. According to one of Motorola’s marketing slogans, “You can stream your music, why not your friends?”

In case streaming friends is a freakish concept to you, here’s what they mean. Motorola wants to put Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, et. al. within a one-tap reach of your smartphone. Thus, Motoblur syncs all of these together, using your address book contacts, and keeps everyone organized. No longer do you need to go to a separate Twitter app to trace the feed. No longer do you need to open up Facebook and check out the new picture album. It’s all there in one slick format. You don’t even have to check your e-mail. Chats, texts, e-mails-everything. It’s all right there in front of you. As the promo video quips, “Your entire life on a single stream-on the phone that’s smart enough to be social.”

The Cliq is the only phone that utilizes Motoblur, but its intent is to stand at the head of a legacy of phones that will utilize the slimming down, simplifying concept of Motoblur. The Cliq along with its sell-helper, Motoblur has an obvious demographic bent in terms of who it’s geared toward. They will sell phones to those who are plugged in to online social networks. That market segment includes teens and twenty-somethings. The Cliq is clearly a social phone. With the Cliq arriving in time for the holiday’s, Motorola may have a glimmer of hope for a future upswing if the Cliq sells as nicely as it looks.

With Sprint now carrying the HTC Touch Pro2, the smartphone enjoys wider usability via Sprint’s fast and vast 3G network. Along with all the other features (read below) the device will be preloaded with Sprint’s GPS, the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV, and the other assorted Sprint software. That’s what sets apart Sprint’s HTC Touch Pro2 from the same phone offered through T-Mobile.

What hasn’t changed much is the price. And consumers probably wish it would change. While the HTC Touch Pro2’s features and functionality may outstrip the competitors, so does the price. The device is available for $349.99 (with a two-year Sprint contract), and that price is inclusive of the $100 rebate.

It is a device obviously geared for the resource-laded business professional. As the marketing blurb reads, “the Touch Pro2 radiates the level of professionalism to match your career in every way,” including (hopefully) your compensation. While it’s not out of reach, the HTC Pro2 is definitely a phone meant for the professional, not the collegian or busy soccer mom.

With Sprint hosting the phone, consumers can enjoy the carrier’s great network with an amazing phone. As a phone, the HTC Pro2 contains proprietary technology that they call Straight Talk, which provides a built-in platform for easy conference and multi-party calls. The dual microphone and high-quality speakerphone further enhance this feature. The phone also has a built in call-reply for responding to e-mail messages, a great idea when urgency matters.

Beyond the obvious smartphone enhancements and functionality expected from a Windows Mobile device, the HTC Pro2 has a spacious screen equipped with a built-in zoom bar. Along with spaciousness, the screen is tiltable, a helpful feature for reading reports, web pages, or lengthy e-mails. The slide-out qwerty keyboard is also worthy of note since pocket-sized keyboards often leave much to be desired in terms of ease of use. A camera/camcorder, Bluetooth capability, and a slough of other hidden perks, make the phone a veritable force to be reckoned with in the smartphone arena.

As a further boon to the business traveler, this phone is completely ready for overseas travel. It is already equipped with compatibility on the 2G EDGE networks internationally, is CDMA2000 ready, as well as GSM compatible, making the phone functional in virtually every corner of the globe.

July saw a new mobile traffic record set for MSNBC.com’s properties following the introduction of video into their mobile web offerings.

Monthly video views increased 207% since MSNBC.com launched mobile video, according to a consumer research survey conducted by InsightExpress for Transpera , the largest mobile video delivery and ad network in North America, trebling video views in just over 4 months.

“Consumers are responding enthusiastically to the ease and convenience of consuming information and entertainment on their mobile devices,” said Transpera CEO/founder Frank Barbieri. “As more and more powerful devices are bought on more and more powerful networks, mobile will become a dominant day part of consumer’s consumption habits, and it will do so with consistently better performing advertising, that we’ve shown continues to deliver great results to highly engaged audiences.”

http://www.mobilizedtv.com/msnbccom-mobile-video-views-climb

The survey mb found some interesting behaviors and preferences among avid mobile video viewers, including:

- 62% use their mobile phone to browse the Internet more than they do their computer vs. 9% of non-mobile video viewers.

- 58% get more of their news from their mobile phone than any other source vs. only 10% of non-mobile video viewers.

- 78% rely on their mobile phone for up-to-the-minute information vs. 19% of non-mobile video viewers.

Not only that, the survey suggests that mobile video viewers are an attractive audience for advertisers. They tend to dine out more often, are more affluent than non-mobile video viewers and travel more. Those audiences are expanding the way they consume media, becoming increasingly reliant and expectant of instant mobile access to news and programming that plays an important role in their day-to-day lives.

Xobni, which is “Inbox” spelled backwards, is still ultimately a free program. The free version, obviously, is a lightweight version of the tricked-out version of Xobni, which gives high-level e-mail users complete control over their inbox. As a VC-backed organization, Xobni needed something to build revenue. Jeff Bonforte, CEO of the startup explains that a paid service helps people “feel better that money is coming in because they know that you’ll be there tomorrow to support them.” What he may not realize is that money coming in to his company means money coming out of consumer’s pockets-an experience that trumps warm and fuzzy feelings of support. However, Xobni Plus is a handy tool that may be worth the $30.

Xobni is a plugin that helps organize, sort, and deal with the e-mail flood that swamps people every day. It speeds up and simplifies the process. For example, e-mail searching, a notoriously painstaking process for Outlook users, is a lighting-fast process in Xobni. It features an as-you-type search feature, bringing up the probable target before you’re even finished completing the search. Xobni also intelligently sorts contacts and e-mails, enabling you to perform searches for either contacts or e-mails simultaneously with one intuitive search process. It integrates all of a person’s contact info from any interaction with them, be it Skype or Gmail or LinkedIn. A threaded conversation interface, similar to Gmail helps keep e-mail conversations in order. The program even claims to reveal, “hidden associations within your e-mail,” uncovering a maze of intriguing networks you may never have been aware of.

The benefits of Xobni Plus are found in “advanced search,” with more options, Boolean searches, phrase searches and more. This feature is sure to satisfy the person who never organizes his e-mail inbox. The contact search feature even gets a boost. Remember a contact’s company, and not his name? Or maybe you don’t even remember his company-just a bit about your interaction with him or her. You don’t even know the first name? No problem. Xobni Rank gives you a list of options based on the few words that come wondering out from your keyboard in your mind-wandering attempt to recall the name. Even users frustrated with Outlook’s mind-numbing filter setup can relax with the intuitive ease of Xobni’s filter system.

All in all, Xobni is a great tool. And $30 is not too much to ask for all the bells and whistles. After all the time you spend on e-mail

To corroborate, they posited their pieces of evidence. First, in April, they detected that one of their applications was run by an ‘iPod 3.1′ Interestingly enough, Pinch Analytics apps picked up some additional 3.1 data in May, and have clocked “a few dozen” so far.

iPod Touch 3.1 ’sightings’ began as early as the beginning of the year. Some reported seeing entries for publicly released models of unreleased products, including an iPod 3.1 along with the new iPhone. Now that the iPhone 3GS has hit the shelves, hopefully the new iPod touch will follow suit.

The predictions of a new iPod Touch necessitates a pronouncement of what it’s going to be like. Obviously, suspicions are the only thing that’s certain right now. Most likely, it will include a camera-probably video-capable. In addition, it should be faster in order to keep up with its new phone-equipped cousin, the iPhone 3GS.

If the new device is really in development, some eager prophets point to a release as early as September. That date would be consistent with Apple’s previous release time frames.

Flash, the multimedia platform designed by Adobe, is standard-fare on most websites. Flash 10 is the most current Flash player designed by Adobe. On mobile devices, however, Flash capabilities through the new Flash Lite 3 will be able to render websites up to Flash 8.

Bsquare, identifying themselves as “the mobile and embedded systems experts,” has development-stage partnerships with software producers and device designers. They assist these larger firms, firms like Microsoft and Adobe, in creating and implementing mobile technology.

The upgrade software, found at Microsoft’s TechNet site, is better known as MAP: Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit. Essentially, the tool gives anyone from a small business owner to a corporate network administrator the ability to determine and plan for system upgrades.

Although the toolkit is still in its beta version, a new version will come out soon. Microsoft has set hopes high for Windows 7, and the MAP toolkit should advance hopes and drive sales.

The prospect of having a camera on your MP3 player may seem a bit unnecessary. That is one argument that casts the rumor toward the ’suspicious’ category. However, Apple is always one to surprise. Cameras on telephones seemed a bit over-the-top at first, too, until every phone came out with them. Some have begun suggesting that iPhones will next have a video feature, which could place them a notch above the Nano camera capability. That would still keep the iPhone in the always-better category of Apple’s products.

One feature of the discussion that elicits curiosity is the close relationship between the iPhone and the iPod, not to mention the Touch. Since the iPhone can do everything that the Touch and Nano can do, why add features to either one that makes them more like each other? Will there be a middle ground where they twain shall meet in one device? It’s too early to predict. Other tech rumors, surveyed elsewhere, suggest the birth of a new iPhone in the not-so-distant future.

Is the rumor valid? It certainly has some valid points. One has to admit that the number one tech company plus the number one phone company equals a winning combination. With the runaway success of the iPhone, someone has to wage competition. No one is better suited to the job than Microsoft and Verizon.

Microsoft has been left in the lurch when it comes to smart phones. Sure, they have some nice software and it’s gotten a lot better. Yes, they made a valiant effort when they signed a deal with Verizon to make LiveSearch the default search engine for all new Verizon phones. But these were only steps in the right direction. All along, the iPhone was selling like crazy, and the App Store, crossed the 1 billion threshold. Who cares about Live Search when users have already downloaded over a billion apps and consumers have bought more than 30 million iPhones?

Microsoft cares. And they are eager to do something about it. That’s why they are cooking up “Mobile Marketplace” (http://client.marketplace.windowsmobile.com/) an App Store rival. Will it work? Time will tell. And it will take time. Movements like this don’t happen overnight.

Some rumor parasites claim that Microsoft will reestablish a strong foothold by unveiling a new phone. Others scoff. One does not regain ascendancy by mimicry, they say. And, unfortunately, it seems as if anything after the iPhone is merely imitation. But Microsoft won’t go down without a fight. If the Verizon partnership proves as successful as they hope, you may be standing in line for a Pink Phone next, not an iPhone.

Star Defense is a hybrid RTS/tower defense game, and it looks gorgeous. While the “fighting bugs in space” theme calls to mind the visual look of Blizzard’s original StarCraft, the gameplay is entirely original. Endless hordes of aliens run across the playing field, which isn’t the flat square of most TD games but instead a sphere or cube that players must rotate in order to see the entire playing field. Graphics and sound effects are top-notch, and show tremendous amounts of polish — this truly does look like a “first-party” game.

Touch Arcade has a new hands-on look, complete with video. They note that the graphics (planets, units, and background stars and nebulae) are “impressive” and also that the gameplay “feels very solid. Make no mistake, tower defense fans are in for something special.”

When Ngmoco announced last month that they’d added new “secret levels” to their popular game Rolando, they promised more. They’re delivering, with a 1.2 update that includes two levels, “Torrid Twist” and “Excavation,” announced in a post to their company blog. Rolando Lite users get a secret level as well — “Hidden Hills,” part of the game’s 1.1 update. The blog post promises even more secret levels between now and the release of Rolando 2 this summer!